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Refugee Admission numbers for FY2018

FY17 closed on September 30th:

September 30, 2017: Donald Trump had set the new ceiling for the year (FY17) at 50,000, but ultimately went over the cap for a total of 53,716 admitted. 23,594 entered the US since Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

October 1, 2017: The President set the cap for FY18 at 45,000, and federal contractors wailed.

January 1, 2018: During the first three months of FY18, the US admitted 5,323 refugees. If this rate continued until September 30th, the last day of the fiscal year, we would admit around 22,000 for the year.

Mission

* Educate citizens about Refugee Resettlement Policy of the U.S. Government.

* Encourage grassroots citizenry to become involved in this issue and by becoming involved help direct the future of your community.

* Encourage reform of Refugee Resettlement Policy at a national level.

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Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

I just wish for once ‘journalists’ at Amos’s level would explain to her listeners some of the real facts about how the US Refugee Admissions Program operates, but maybe NPR listeners are only interested in horror stories about the President with headlines meant to alarm them in to action.

(More on that below)

But see how journalism professor Amos beginsher report (hat tip: Margaret) with Donald Trump declaring that Obama’s Australia deal was dumb. It was, and it is!

Last year began with an angry phone call about refugees, famously leaked later. The newly inaugurated Donald Trump exploded when Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, asked him to honor a U.S. pledge to resettle some 1,200 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centers.

“This is a stupid deal,” Trump fumed to an astonished Turnbull. “This shows me to be a dope.”

A day earlier, the president had signed an executive order temporarily halting the entire U.S. refugee resettlement program and slashed the number of expected arrivals President Obama had set.

Trump complained that by honoring the deal with Australia he was “going to get killed” politically and abruptly hung up the phone.

It was the harbinger of policies set in motion to unravel the U.S. refugee resettlement program, an issue that defined Trump’s election campaign and has shaped much of his first year in office.

What the heck!

She then goes on and never reports that the President is going along with the deal (doesn’t she read RRW?).

But, you see, admitting that the President caved-in to pressure and is now going to admit up to 1,200 migrants that Australia doesn’t want, who have been in Australian-controlled detention for as long as four years, doesn’t fit the opinion piece she crafted and thus wouldn’t help stir up Leftwing anger.

“This is strategic, that’s why it’s different from previous anti-immigrant mindsets. It is a conscious effort to deconstruct the system,” Crocker says. He points to dramatic budget cuts for the nine private, voluntary agencies that for decades have contracted with the State Department to resettle and integrate the refugee population in communities across the U.S.

“The damage has already been done. These agencies run on the slimmest of margins. The layoffs are already doing structural damage. It’s going to take a long time to rebuild,” he says.

At this point, a real journalist would explain just a bit about the “voluntary agencies” (Ha! Ha!) which are almost completely funded by the US taxpayer, and, as such, are quasi-government organizations.

It would only take a paragraph or two to explain their financial structure based on federal payments on a refugee per head basis (hey! maybe even throw in a few numbers about CEO salaries). She might explain how they operate in secrecy in hopes that the locals won’t catch on to plans for their communities (Rutland, VT for example!).

She might say they are community organizers holding anti-Trump rallies like the recent one in Washington with CAIR, or that they hired the Podesta Group (for $100,000) to lobby for them.

She could point out that they could have been raising private charitable dollars to tide them over (and help refugees!) through slow refugee admission times. Or, maybe she could report on refugees left in the lurch by the contractors, some wishing to return to camps in Africa. You get my drift!

Then she quotes me wanting to be sure her listeners know what an extremist I am (well ok!). But, in many ways I’m more of an investigative journalist than she is!

“Donald Trump missed a fabulous opportunity to suspend the entire refugee admissions program,” activist Ann Corcoran complained to Breitbart News. Corcoran runs the Refugee Resettlement Watch website that regularly claims the resettlement program is corrupt and a health and security risk for communities that accept the newcomers. [Have I ever used the word corrupt?—ed]

Laughing my head off! This is my complete statement quoted at Breitbart:

“Donald Trump missed a fabulous opportunity to suspend the entire refugee admissions program, at least on a temporary basis, until we get back on our feet in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico,” Ann Corcoran, who runs the Refugee Resettlement Watch website, tells Breitbart News.

And, Amos is training young journalists at Princeton!

Yes, the President has great power under the Refugee Act of 1980 and he could have suspended it outright. His team obviously decided to “smother” it by cutting the numbers and consequently cutting the funding (your tax dollars) that feed the refugee contractors***.

Here she gives Becca Hellerwith the International Refugee Assistance Project in New York a lot of column inches to say what we said yesterdaythat Congress will need to step in to make permanent changes to the law.

“We are in a pitched battle for the continued existence of the U.S. refugee resettlement program,” says Heller. “The numbers are going to be low for the next few years and it’s our job to keep them as high as we can.”

[….]

Heller says there are limits to the president’s powers to end the refugee resettlement program outright. Congress established the program’s framework and would need to vote to eliminate it.

“I think [the refugee program is] under attack but I don’t think it’s over. For one thing, it’s the law,” says Heller, pointing to the 1980 Refugee Act that sets out the provisions for the admission of refugees “of special humanitarian concern,” and the 1965 immigration law that emphasizes family reunification [aka chain migration—ed].

“The president may be able to temporarily prevent refugees from coming in,” Heller says. “It’s not going to successfully dismantle the program without Congress.”

Frelick says there is nothing in the law (Refugee Act of 1980) that says the US resettle a single refugee

Ms. Amos earlier in her piece, designed to paint the President in the worst light, while the refugee industry is pure as the driven snow, quoted a spokesperson for Human Rights First. But, she could have just as well quoted Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch who said this in November 2016 and I reported here. Take that Ms. Heller!

See what refugee advocate and longtime expert Bill Frelick (Human Rights Watch) said in November after Trump was elected and the refugee industry went in to shell-shock:

“In the U.S., there’s not a quota that has to be filled. The U.S. has a budgeted amount of money to do refugee resettlement, but there’s no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee, and there’s no legal obligation to do it.”

I suspect he wasn’t too popular with his peers/media after that statement. I rarely see him quoted now.

More promotion of the existing/flawed refugee program and criticism of the President from Ms. Amos here.

***These are the “voluntary agencies” responsible for all refugee resettlement in the US. I rarely use the phrase voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) because it makes me laugh. When one thinks of voluntary agencies, one thinks of non-governmental organizations working hard to raise private money and using volunteer workers to carry out their humanitarian good works, not agencies funded with MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars(involuntarily taken from you) and CEOs making $200,000, $300,000 and $600,000 annual salaries!

In just a couple of days I will be reporting on the number of refugees admitted to the US in the first three months of the fiscal year which began on October 1, 2017.

The refugee arrival numbers as news hook!

But, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry—RCUSA—is tracking the numbers every two weeks in order to have regular fresh news with which to whack the Trump Administration. The last time I saw this concerted effort to supply refugee admission numbers to the media on a regular basis was way back in 2007/2008 when they smacked down President Bush every month for his slow-walking Iraqi refugees in to the US.

Long time readers might remember the fun I had making fun of AP reporter Matthew Leewho could be counted on to report Bush LOW numbers at the close of each month presumably at the behest of his friends in the refugee industry.

By the way, RCUSA is the same lobbying consortium (members listed below) that recently joined with CAIRin organizing an anti-Trump rally in DC and hired the Podesta Group to lobby certain Senate Republicans. (Podesta went under, wonder if they got their money’s worth before it did!)

Reader Robin sent me this report a few minutes ago from WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky.

So they are at it again, creating a regular news hook about numbers and local media is biting.

Besides the opportunity to whack Trump, what they are deceptively doing is trying to get the media and the uneducated public to believe that the CEILING, set by the President for each fiscal year, is a goal that must be attained. It is not!

When Trump set the level at 45,000 for FY18 that only means he cannot go over that, there is nothing in refugee law that says he cannot be significantly under the CAP/CEILING.

And, I find it so tiresome that they continue to compare Trump’s admission numbers to the highest three-month period that Obama ever reached—the three months as he was walking out the door at the White House.

Sure it might be 1,000 fewer than last year and that is because last year (FY16) was an outlier!

It was the ONE year that Obama was attempting to pour refugees in to the country at a higher than normal rate.

When I checked Wrapsnetjust now, that is the US State Department’s data repository, I found that the average number of refugees placed in PA over the last ten years was 2,568 per year. (BTW, her numbers from the PA refugee office do not match the federal data, so it is unclear what numbers the PA refugee office is using.)

We do know that Pennsylvania, over ten years, is in the top ten refugee placement target states (turning red states blue!) in the nation.

This year, a combination of pauses, new federal policies and screening procedures dramatically cut the number of refugees finding new homes in Pennsylvania. From 3,679 in budget year 2016, the number fell to 2,698 in 2017, a 26.7 percent decrease, according to the Pennsylvania Refugee Resettlement Program.

That drop-off appears especially steep due to an uptick in refugee arrivals during President Barack Obama’s last year in office. Local refugee resettlement agencies say the decline was also driven by Trump administration policies that could have long-lasting effects.

Does Miller-Wilson know that her own organization added to the chaos and confusion with its lawsuits filed against the President?

Now this next bit made me laugh. We have a HIAS employee complaining about how the “government’s back and forth with the courts” made their work harder. IT WAS HER ORGANIZATION, HIAS, THAT INITIATED THE LAWSUITS!

“It’s incredibly mercurial, it’s incredibly capricious, and it’s incredibly hard to manage,” said Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director of the refugee resettlement group HIAS, of the federal government’s back and forth with the courts over refugee policy this year.

And, let me add that this whole refugee system, based on a per refugee head payment to the contractors, is flawed because it will be “incredibly capricious” as each year the President has the power to set the arrival numbers.

The FACT that the contractors have become so dependent on high arrival numbers for their budgetary survival is their fault! (See my previous post, will HIAS head honchos take pay cuts?)

Ms. Benshoff really drank the koolaide the contractors served up with this line:

The president also lowered the total number of refugees allowed into the country each year from 110,000 to 45,000.

Let’s jump to the facts on the 110,000 Obama number. Obama admitted no where near 110,000 in any of his eight years in office! He proposed 110,000 as he was literally walking out the door in the fall of 2016!

Notice what the tricksters at the DOS have done here. Obama set the FY17 ceiling as he was walking out the door at 110,000. Note that he had 7 previous years where he could have done the same. Why didn’t he? Trump legally reset it at 50,000, but the DOS left the 110,000 there because they want to make Trump look as mean as they possibly can compared to their dear leader Obama, and so that their media lackeys can continue to write about Obama’s 110,000 level that was really pie in the sky. 110,000 could never have been accomplished.

O’Sullivan’s organization is a subcontractor to USCRI (Lavinia Limon). USCRI is 98% funded by taxpayer dollars. They are likely losing more than a million bucks.

“We’re all concerned about the number itself, and the unevenness with which we’re actually receiving word and being asked to resettle refugees,” said Margaret O’Sullivan, executive director of Nationalities Service Center in Philadelphia. “That’s our job, to be ready.”

For those of you who continue to believe that the Refugee Program has no cost to state taxpayers (that it is solely a federal program), this next line should disabuse you of that notion.

As a result of the downturn, O’Sullivan described cutting or losing around a million dollars from the group’s budget related to refugee resettlement this year, due to reduced state grants and lower resettlement numbers.

Again, beating a dead horse, but this program, run like a ponzi scheme, based on the number of paying clients (aka refugees) being admitted each year and nine contractors paid based on the number, must be abolished!

And, you won’t find any sympathy here for their budget problems now, because they got fat and lazy on taxpayer dollars (they raise very little private charity) and apparently never planned for a downturn.

There will be no longterm reform of how refugees arrive (and are placed in your towns and cities) in America until these nine, Leftwing community activist groups, are removed from the federal dole.

And, you know there must be more to the case of star-of-the-story Mohamed Hussein’s deportation than reporter Mukhtar Ibrahim is telling us.

MPR reporter Mukhtar Ibrahim. See more of his reporting here: https://www.mpr.org/about/people/mibrahim

Saying Mohamed Hussein was born in Canada, came to US (illegally obviously) as an infant and grew up here and is now being deported to Somalia strikes me as really really strange.

I can only guess he had a run-in with the law along the way, or how would his illegal presence even have been found? He, like so many others, just can live under the radar, again, unless something happened to bring him to ICE’s attention.

Hereis Minnesota Public Radio in a story from two days ago. For previous posts on the aborted flight to Somalia click hereand here.

Mohamed Hussein arrived in Minnesota as an infant more than 20 years ago. On Thursday morning, he was taken from the United States in shackles on a plane bound for Somalia, a country he’s never seen, where he knows no one.

Detained in September after he reported for a regular check-in with federal immigration officials, Hussein was transferred to a Louisiana detention center to be deported. He’d be in Somalia now except that logistical problems forced the flight back to the U.S. after it reached Senegal in West Africa.

Although he’s back on American soil, Hussein remains stuck in a maddening limbo, one shared by many undocumented Somalis who came here or were brought here as children by family members, and whose risk of deportation has risen dramatically in the past year. [This fact of undocumented Somalis is so annoying, this is one group of people that did have a legal pathway to America, for decades! and yet they still were sneaking in!—ed]

Minnesota immigration lawyers are scrambling now to get emergency stays for Hussein and other Somali clients who’ve been ordered deported by the U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Hussein’s flight included 91 other men and women; at least 10 were Minnesota residents.

Their families fear their loved ones could die in Somalia’s violence. The worry extends beyond those individuals who face deportation to those they leave behind. Their stories are heart-rending. [Is this supposed to be a news story?—ed]

Hussein sits now in a Miami detention center awaiting his fate. His wife is due any moment with their first child. She also has children from a previous relationship.

Hussein told MPR News he’s confused about why the U.S. government is sending him to Somalia.

Okay so something is fishy in the tale.

But then this misleading use of data by MPR to make it look like things are much, much worse under Trump just steams me! First go here and see what the numbers do look like for Somali admissions to the US over 3 decades. They had plenty of opportunity to get here legally!

Spinning, spinning, spinning!

Below is MPR’s graph to show how bad the refugee admission numbers are for Somalis under Trump (Trump’s first partial year is FY17 which ended on September 30, 2017).

The number DECLINED(!) in FY17 (implication that this is that mean ol’ Donald Trump’s doings.)

LOL! The number declines! These people are shameless!

Here (listed below) are the numbers of Somalis admitted for the 7 years (including Obama fiscal years!) leading up to their graph (totaling ten fiscal years).

What do you know! That FY17 number of 6,130 is just about the average for the last ten years. MPR could be reporting that FY17 represented an average year!

Or, how about this: Trump doubles FY11 when President Obama admitted only 3,161 Somalis!

Because of the travel ban issues, MPR will likely have a case to make that numbers of Somalis being admitted are declining, but that was hardly the case for FY17.

2007: 6,958 (Bush year)

2008: 2,523 (This was the year they found Somalis entering the US fraudulently in P-3 program—family reunification—program was suspended.)

2009: 4,189 (Bush and Obama)

2010: 4,884 (All Obama)

2011: 3,161

2012: 4,921

2013: 7,600

Read the remaining part of Ibrahim’s sob storyhere (if you feel like it).

This time it’s at the New York Times. But, I am out of time to parse this latest news in any depth.

There are two things (among many things) I want you to take note of in this account.

Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch Australia: These men have acute mental health problems and need to be moved (to America?) ASAP. Photo: https://www.hrw.org/about/people/elaine-pearson

First, there is now a debate raging about whether Australia’s detained (failed) asylum seekers from countries now banned by the Trump Administration will be grandfathered in because the deal was first made by Obama in 2016 (and agreed to by President Trump!).

The star of this account is a Rohingya Muslim (most detainees are single Muslim men who tried to break into Australia by boat).

The Rohingya of Burma/Bangladesh are not on the banned list, so expect to see more of them entering the US (as other Muslims from places like Somalia, Iraq and Syria are kept to a minimum).

But, I just couldn’t believe this admission:

Did she really mean to say this?

“If the U.S. isn’t going to accept people from certain countries, they should make that crystal clear now so Australia can make alternative arrangements,” said Elaine Pearson, the Australia director for Human Rights Watch. “There’s no time to waste — these refugees have acute mental health problems made worse by years of uncertainty and insecurity on Manus and Nauru.”

Deal gets dumber every time we hear about it.

Is your town ready for your New Americans: Muslim men who have mental health problems from years in detention with only other men who will be free to roam your neighborhoods!

Adding more information to the strange storywe reported yesterday about an ICE flight to Africa carrying 92 Somalis destined to go home to Somalia but instead did a U-turn and returned to the US after landing in Senegal.

Minnesota immigration lawyer Kim Hunter talked to the NY Times about her Somali clients. http://www.kimhunterlaw.com/staff/

The NY Times after many whinny paragraphs devoted to lawyer Kim Hunter, whose clients were on the plane, tells us a few bits of information we didn’t know.

Besides learning that the new government in Somalia is cooperating with the US and that the flight is being returned to Louisiana, here is some useful data:

Many Somali citizens who are in the United States without documentation have been able to stay for years despite deportation orders because Somalia would not grant them the necessary travel documents. Mogadishu, which opened an embassy in Washington in 2015, appears to be cooperating with American officials to accept more of its citizens back.

Even Obama was deporting Somalis!

The number of Somali people being deported from the United States has risen since 2014. During that fiscal year, 65 Somali citizens were removed from the United States. That number jumped to 120 the next year, and 198 the year after that.

Trump administration picks up the pace!

In the fiscal year 2017, 521 Somali citizens were deported, according to the most recent report from ICE. A spokeswoman for the agency said there were five chartered flights to Somalia that year.

One advantage of this ICE flight mess-up is that we now know about these deportations and so do a whole lot of other people—including those Somalis who are trying to figure out how to illegally enter the US right now.

And, will we see more “undocumented” Somalis headed to Canada via frozen northern Minnesota and North Dakota?

The other day when we reported that the Heritage Foundation got it so wrong with its “Roadmap for Reform” one of my first thoughts was it is because they clearly are living in a DC bubble and have no idea of what is going on in ‘flyover country.’

I think it is because the mainstream media isn’t reporting on the trouble in towns and cities where refugee overload has created enormous tensions. We don’t expect fairness from CNN etc, but Fox News is just as much to blame!

This Fox News storyby Elizabeth Llorente makes my point. Llorente clearly hasn’t read very much about the program and then she uses Linda Hartke, of all people, as her source for views from the religious Left.

We will get to Hartke shortly, but first this. Reporter Llorente clearly got this talking point from the refugee contractors (probably from Hartke!).

The number of refugees entering the U.S. has plummeted since President Trump lifted a four-month ban on admissions.

Only 3,108 refugees came to the U.S. in October and November, the first two months of the new fiscal year. The Obama administration admitted 18,300 refugees in the same period last year.The new numbers represent a dramatic 83 percent drop.

Lazy reporter?

Take a look at this data (below). What do you see? Those two months she uses as comparison are the highest two October/November admissions for probably 20 years (at least 10 here). Yes, Trump’s numbers are thankfully low, but it is disingenuous to take the top Obama months and compare them this way—this is what the lying Left does all the time!

This is a screenshot from Wrapsnet. I cut the later months off so that we could see the early months for the last 11 years more clearly. November numbers have not been added yet. We know however that the total for Trump’s October and November is 3,108. What steams me is when I see Trump’s numbers compared to the largest numbers Obama ever had in those months. That is what the Leftwing media does all the time, so why is Fox News doing it?

In the fall of 2016, fearing that Trump would be elected in November, the Obama administration was working furiously to bring in extremely high numbers in those months leading up to and following the election. The numbers were so high that refugees were dumped into motels because the contractors couldn’t keep up.

Now to Linda Hartke!

Of all the people to quote representing the nine contractors*** she picked the embattled Hartke and gives her many column inches to lament! (Does she know Hartke personally?)

Don’t these reporters at Fox News read?

Hartke is embroiled in accusations of financial mismanagement. See Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart‘s expose here.

Hartke makes over $300,000 annually and her organization is allegedly in deep turmoil. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/11/source-claims-financial-mismanagement-fraud-harassment-lutheran-immigration-refugee-service-spark-external-investigation/

Groups that work with refugees lamented the drop, saying the U.S. should not scale back its support for people fleeing upheaval.

Could Fox just once mention the fact that these “groups that work with refugees” are paid government contractors who have a financial interest in seeing ever-larger numbers of refugees admitted to the US.

“It’s tragic, really,” said Linda Hartke, president and chief executive of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which resettles refugees. “It’s tragic for refugees who’ve fled for their lives, who are simply looking for the chance to be safe and provide for their families and see their kids go to school and live in dignity.”

She said to Fox News, “It hard for many Americans to understand why this administration fails to see that we not only have an international obligation to protect the most vulnerable, but an opportunity to demonstrate American leadership.”

As for the administration’s withdrawal from the global talks on migration, Hartke viewed it as bewildering.

“The global compact was an opportunity, including for our neighbors, to be much more thoughtful about the flows of migrants, what’s good for this country and for our neighbors as well,” Hartke said. “Having these conversations in a global context is something we shouldn’t be afraid of.”

And, in light of what is happening inside Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, I have to say that Hartke has chutzpah!

Here, for new readers and for reporter Llorente, are the nine federal resettlement contractors paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities. These middlemen get paid by the head for their ‘charitable good works,’ so they have no incentive to ever see a reduction in numbers.

Dear President Trump halt the “dumb” Australia deal where we are resettling illegal aliens who are Australia’s problem to unsuspecting American cities. You had the right America First! instincts back in February when you called it a “dumb deal.”

Well this news certainly changes the picture on the news we reported hereyesterday.

(Just a reminder that this compact was not some longstanding agreement. It was created only in September of 2016 when Obama, walking out the door, put on his little side show on refugees at the UN General Assembly meeting. It has little weight, but if we didn’t get out now the chances were great that after a forth-coming meeting and more to follow in 2018 we would be drawn deeply into something that is not to America’s benefit.)

Chief of Staff Kelly said pullout and President Trump ultimately concurred!

Here is Neil Munro at Breitbart telling us that actually UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was the only hold-out in the Administration arguing for the US to stay in the compact.(Hat tip: Richard @highblueridge)

President Donald Trump overruled objections by his United Nations ambassador when he directed the U.S. leave the “Global Compact on Migration” treaty, which is intended to promote mass-migration into countries regardless of national laws and voters’ preferences. [Treaty might be too strong a word here, but it surely could have turned in to one.—-ed]

U.N.. Ambassador Nikki Haley wanted the United States to stay in the pro-migration treaty which is being advanced by a multinational conference in Mexico on Monday, December 4. But according to Foreignpolicy.com,

White House chief of staff John Kelly, who previously led the Department of Homeland Security’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions strongly backed a pullout, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the deliberations. The State Department initially opposed the withdrawal, but its policy planning chief, Brian Hook, who represented Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the principals’ meeting, reversed course and recommended ditching the negotiations.

The meeting ended in deadlock, with Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressing the lone dissent. Haley had argued that the United States would have a better shot at influencing the outcome of the negotiations if it participated in the process.

She was ultimately overruled by the president, according to diplomatic sources.

Trump made the pro-American decision on Friday, as Senators prepared to vote on the tax bill.

“We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country.”

(US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley)

The Human Rights Industrial Complex (HRIC) must be going nuts!

Thanks for the tip from reader ‘heymister24’ who sent this overnight.

***Update December 4th***This newschanges the picture. Pres. Trump made the decision himself after Haley wanted to stay in the compact.

Here is Deutsch Welle‘s version of the news (reported in many publications):

The United States has announced it is withdrawing from the Global Compact on Migration. The non-binding UN migration pact was meant to boost international cooperation on migration issues.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has withdrawn the United States from a United Nations pact to coordinate and improve international migration and refugee issues, the US mission to the global body said.

The global approach … not compatible with US sovereignty.”

“Today, the US Mission to the United Nations informed the UN Secretary-General that the United States is ending its participation in the Global Compact on Migration,” the US mission to the UN said.

In September 2016, all 193 UN member states of the General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. [You may remember that was Obama’s big show at the UN.—ed]

The non-binding declaration includes a set of pledges to protect migrants, foster migrant integration, develop guidelines on the treatment of vulnerable migrants and strengthen global governance of migration, among other issues.

[….]

“The New York Declaration contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies and the Trump Administration’s immigration principles.As a result, President Trump determined that the United States would end its participation in the Compact process that aims to reach international consensus at the UN in 2018,” the US statement said.

[….]

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “America is proud of our immigrant heritage and long-standing leadership” on supporting migrants and refugees.

“No country has done more than the United States, and our generosity will continue. But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone,” she added. “We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country. The global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with US sovereignty.”

I hope this means we are going to choose our own refugees (if any) without dancing to the UNHCR’s tune going forward.

Mostly I tell readers to complain to the President about something. This time send him your thanks by clicking here.